Testimony of a Ukrainian who lost his house after a bombardment by the Russian army on the front north of Kiev.
Yevgen Sboromyrsky’s body is shaking so violently that he can’t even lift his cigarette to his lips, watching his house burn after a bombardment by the Russian army on the front north of Kiev. The explosions were so loud that his neighbors dived to hide behind the wooden pickets of their fence. But Yevguen, in shock, stayed in the middle of the road.
“I was opening the refrigerator to get some eggs,” said the 49-year-old man in tears. “Then a big boom, the refrigerator fell on me, then the whole house”. Her German Shepherd began barking and running around in circles in her garden, as the house burned and fighting raged in the distance. As the smoke grew thicker, his neighbors yelled at him to take cover and Ievguen took off running before falling to his knees.
Video: A Week of Terror
“My whole life is gone,” he cries. “My wife managed to get out the window and I thank God my kids left for the store 10 minutes early. Thank God. That thing crashed in their room.” Taking a break, he rubs the back of his neck with his hands before adding: “they could have stayed there”. Then more tears.
armored cemetery
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, entering its second week, is now marked by increasingly deadly and seemingly indiscriminate attacks on residential areas, such as those in the town of Irpin, where Yevgen lives.
Thick plumes of black smoke hang over swathes of the northwestern suburbs of Kiev, after a day of near-uninterrupted Russian bombardment. The inhabitants are both frightened and perplexed.
The Russian army will have great difficulty taking Irpin because Ukraine has taken a drastic measure: blowing up the bridges that run along the western side of Kiev.
According to residents of Irpin, Russian tanks passed through the night from Thursday to Friday and destroyed a warehouse used by the American cosmetics company Mary Kay.
“I don’t know what the tanks are doing there because they can’t cross the river to enter Kiev,” said Vassyl Prikhodko, a local security guard.
“They shoot at something and then back off. Maybe they’re just trying to scare us,” the 47-year-old added.
The nearby town of Bucha has become a graveyard for Russian armor that attempted to enter the Ukrainian capital last week.
An entire street in this now deserted and partially destroyed city is filled with the charred remains of tanks and other vehicles marked with a white “V”, a distinctive sign indicating their regrouping in the Russian offensive.
The same sign had been spotted on Russian military equipment engaged during weeks of military maneuvers along the Ukrainian border in neighboring Belarus last month.
“We will survive”
At the main checkpoint between Boutcha and Irpin, three men are kneeling on the ground with their hands in the air, while Ukrainian soldiers point their Kalashnikovs at their chests.
The Ukrainian military scoured the woods and fields in search of Russian “saboteurs” who might attempt to infiltrate Kiev in civilian clothes.
A few meters away, elderly people are squatting near a low wall to hide from the shells and missiles whizzing above their heads.
Behind, in the distance, the charred remains of a house and a partially destroyed apartment building.
Viktor Pobednii walks down a dirt road in the nearby town of Stayanka, staring at the burning sky and wondering when international pledges of support for Ukraine will turn into something that will make his life a little safer.
“They have decreed so many sanctions against Russia and nothing is working”, launches this former retired naval officer.
“They have to say that if this war doesn’t end, NATO forces will enter to stabilize the situation in Ukraine. It can’t go on like this anymore,” he adds, annoyed.
Oksana Sourinova took matters into her own hands. This 52-year-old woman now has a gun in the passenger seat of her car, pointed out the window.
“I have to defend my homeland,” she said. “Anyone who is still here, we are all going to stay until the end, and I hope we all survive.”
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